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There was exciting news for The ROC this month! On April 11, David Bottroff, Executive Director for Reach-Out Colorado, was nominated and selected as one of six who received Garfield County Humanitarian of the Year Awards. The award was presented at a special program and dinner at the famous Colorado Hotel in Glenwood Springs, CO, sponsored by the Garfield County Human Services Commission and hosted by the three Garfield County Commissioners. You can log onto the Garfield county website, go to events then to Humanitarian Awards, or simply click on this link, http://www.garfield-county.com/hsc/humanitarian-service-awards.aspx to see the video that was prepared that introduced each of the 24 nominees that evening. This is a huge event each year in Garfield County and gets lots of press and recognition in the county.

The ROC is so blessed to receive this award because it shows that Garfield County recognizes the valuable service that is provided to our area by so many volunteers and contributors who make this ministry possible.

I was blessed to have my wife, Jeanne; my dad, Merton Bottroff and my daughter and her husband, Jennifer and Mike Glynn to be with me when the award was presented. Also present to support me were Sandy Peterson, The ROC Treasurer and her husband Rick, as well as good friend Rae Ann Bartels. Their attendance at the affair made me feel very supported and loved.

For those of you who pray for, financially support or volunteer for The ROC, I want you to know that you are a HUGE part of this award and that God has used you to help touch and change lives of families and little children who need an encouraging hand-up from time to time. Thank you for giving!

I will put some photos that were taken by the family on the website www.reach-out-colorado.org as well.

Obviously I’m not a blogger. Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve made an entry. Obviously I need someone who’s a good PR person!!

With God’s blessing we are still going strong, however. This morning we co-sponsored the Coat Drive Give-Away at Rifle Middle School. Over 150 people were able to get a warm winter coat today and lots of sweatshirts, warm hats and gloves. This is The ROC’s 2nd year of coat drive involvement working in co-operation with Canyon Cleaners in Silt, The River Center in New Castle, The Salvation Army in Glenwood Springs and the Rifle Chamber of Commerce who all have been doing this for 5 years. Thanks to the many volunteers who helped set up Friday night, supervise and take it down this morning (35 Volunteers helped us at Rifle this year!!)

The Totes of Hope weekend food program for school kids is going well again this year. Last week we packed food for 261 Kids and the number keeps growing. We have from 8-12 volunteers helping each week with this program. I’m very grateful that the schools all send someone to pick the food up at the warehouse and I don’t have to deliver them this year, a great back saver!! We also have a volunteer who meets the Food Bank of the Rockies twice a month to receive the food, load it on our donated trailer and get it to the warehouse. I can’t tell you what a blessing Fred is to us for doing that!!

The Angel Tree Christmas Gift program takes off this week and the trees with kiddo’s requests will be on the trees in the stores so we will soon be collecting these gifts to give out in December. Thank you to our new Angel Tree director, Erin Reeves, who has enthusiastically taken this project on for us this year. There is a good group of volunteers who are eager to get going on this project as well.

Jeanne Bottroff has been busy writing grants for The ROC and we have had a good response so far this year. I was able to attend the Rural Philanthropy Days program that is held every 4 years in Colorado and this year (our 4th year of operation and therefore the first one we could have attended) and made presentations to 5 or the 40 grantors who made themselves available in a format that is not unlike “speed-dating.” Eight presenters sit with one grantor at a round table and have 2 minutes to tell what your organization does and to make an appeal. After some questions and dialogue they give you an indication as to whether your organization is a good fit for them and give you a green, yellow or red light to submit a grant application to them. The organizers of the event say that you’ve had a good day if you get 2 greens and a yellow. God blessed us with 4 greens and a yellow! So this meant that Jeanne has some grants to write. One organization contacted us and said “Don’t bother sending us a grant request, we’re just going to send you some money. Another one said that we didn’t fit what they were presently granting so they couldn’t grant us but they liked what we were doing so were just going to send us a donation. God is good and we have been blessed.

Our one concern is that we are going to lose the warehouse building we have been operating from the last 2 ½ years rent free. The business supplying the space to us is having to give up the lease on the building because the economy is so bad here that there is very little work for them. So we have till the end of November to find a new place. The bad news is that we have no budget to pay rent yet with the grant money we recently received for general operating we could pay a little rent for a while. The good news is that God has always watched out for us (after all this is His ministry!!) and we may have a lead on a building that would suit our needs in West Rifle. Please pray that this works out if it’s God’s will.

We still do lots of emergency needs with rent, utilities, auto repairs. This calendar year so far we have helped 362 people in 89 families with such things.

Thank you to those who are supporting us financially and with your prayers. Pray that God will keep us in good health and also send us workers specifically qualified to do the things we need done: business manager, emergency services director, community people to enlarge our board, and PR director, to name a few.

This is a much overdue ROC Report as I haven’t written since December 27. One of the problems I need to remedy is that when it comes to Emergency Services for The ROC, it’s sort of a one horse show and I’m the horse. I’m really praying for someone with the interest and experience to help with this about 10-15 hours a week. We also need some help when it comes to Totes of Hope delivery to the schools which takes about 2 hours per week. But you need a strong back and an SUV or truck to do it. I’ve been blessed to have Michael Smith help me the since Thanksgiving but he will be going back to work very soon. He works as a golf pro at the local course. I’m sure gonna miss him! Thanks to all of you volunteers who come on Tuesdays to pack the totes! We LOVE YOU!!!

God has blessed The ROC so that it was able to extend a helping hand to many individuals and families the last year. The totals for 2012 are:

94 families

267 people

Utilities $3,333.22

Lodging $ 996.30

Gas $ 600.00

Rent $ 342.00

Total $4,929.00

This is just the families that we actually helped out of our budget. We made many referrals to other agencies where people got the help they needed (after all, that’s what we do: we are a resource/referral agency first.) The above totals also do not include food, gas or bus tickets for transportation to doctor appointments, work or back home. This also does not include the 319 Angel Tree gifts at Christmas nor the 320 Totes of Hope distributed each week to school children. Plus we arranged for 4 cars to be fixed (no charge) at Columbine Ford in Rifle as well as a used car they donated to a single mother of 5 whose car was too dangerous for her family to ride in.

In February The ROC was recognized by Highland Elementary School in Rifle as Business of the Month. They presented us with a plaque for our work in providing Totes of Hope to the students. The presentation was made at their School Board meeting and we, Kim Regan and I, got our picture in the paper. Re2 School Superintendent, Dr. Susan Birdsey, was at the meeting and made a speech to everyone present about how much she valued the Totes of Hope Program in the district. One of her major concerns about going to a 4 day school week (to save the district money when their budgets had been drastically cut by the state) was that this would mean a longer weekend for the children and that many of them would have inadequate food at their homes. She is so excited that the Totes of Hope is providing food for 320 children whose parents have signed up to receive it. She knows it is helping tremendously and she sees that the children are so excited each Thursday when the Totes of food are passed out to them to take to their homes. Her words made us feel very good about what we do! We hear from parents and teachers how much better the children are doing in school because of the food they are getting on the weekend.

A few exciting things are happening at The ROC this month:

1. I met with the Board of Tom’s Door in Carbondale last week to make a presentation about what we do because they are considering being regular sponsors of our emergency assistance program. I have been using Tom’s Door when the situation fit their guidelines and I was out of other resources. A year or so ago I met with Rosie Mc Swain, the founder of Tom’s Door, for lunch to discuss how we could work together. She wanted to know just who The ROC is and what we do. She was very pleased that our goals are much the same as theirs are. I presented along with three other agencies in the valley who were invited to present their organizations mission as well. They were very pleased with what they heard about Reach-Out Colorado and will be offering, in the near future, to give us funding for our Emergency Assistance program each month. Now I’m just waiting to hear what it will be.

2. Just heard today from The Aspen Community Foundation who called to say that they had approved a grant request Jeanne has sent to them for funding to finance a professional team to help The ROC with Strategic Planning. This will help to strengthen our board, give us guidelines for future growth and help us with a business model. It’s kind of scary but we’re excited about it. We hope to begin that right away.

3. The Aspen Foundation recommended us to a ladies organization in Aspen who call themselves The Baguettes. They do charitable work in the valley and want to help The ROC with its Totes of Hope program. Jeanne submitted a letter of inquiry to them giving them the information they requested. They called us back and said that they will, for sure, be helping us very soon. This is exciting as well!

4. A representative from the Re2 school district contacted me last week as well and they are excited about what we are doing in the Rifle Schools with the Totes of Hope. Now they want to discuss with us what they can do to support us so we can continue to do what we do for them. It seems they’re talking about volunteer help as well as financial help. I’m trying to arrange a meeting between them and The River Center in New Castle (who have already been working on a similar arrangement with the New Castle schools which is also part of Re2). Hopefully this meeting will happen soon.

5. Jeanne has been working with my sister, Judith Horton (who just moved to Rifle from WA state) to teach her the ins and outs of writing grants for The ROC. She has had some experience in this and after the first day together Jeanne said she could see what a wonderful benefit Judith was going to be to the team. She already helps pack Totes each week and was active with Angel Tree in December as well.

We are well into 2014 and we are excited to see what God is going to do through The ROC to be His hands giving aid to those in need. Pray for us, won’t you.

Thank you to those who have faithfully supported The ROC with contributions regularly or occasionally. Just so you’ll know, your contributions are tax deductable.

As the new year begins my sermon this Sabbath is based on Ps. 40:1-3. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a roc and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.”

This passage could be the story of my journey to The ROC. While working in a hardware store for 5 years I was tempted to think my life of ministry was over, but God turned things around and put a new song in my mouth. Through The ROC, God has, this year, fed 325 children every week; provided Christmas gifts to 319 children who otherwise would have received no gift; provided emergency services to over 247 people this year with rent, utilities, food, gas, lodging, transportation and referrals to resources where they could get help.

“Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.” This is one of the goals of The ROC: to help people realize that he does care about them and to put a new song of praise to him in their mouth.”

Many of you are prayer supporters, financial supporters, volunteers and encouragers in this work. It is your support that, with God’s blessing, makes all these things possible. We cal all praise our God together with this new song going into a new year!

How many days of sub-zero temperature do we really need? The snow is beautiful but the highs have only been in the teens recently as well. But that’s the season and the first day of winter is approaching. The ROC has been busy with Emergency Services calls for utilities and rent assistance. I scramble to find resources and funds for these good families who need work so they can keep their utilities on during the winter. I arranged for new tires on a car so the father could make it to his job 60 miles up-valley on the icy roads. (Thank you, once again, Columbine Ford!!) Of course all the agencies are taxed at this time of the year as well.

The Angel Tree program is going well. Elaine Cloninger, the team leader, is doing a magnificent job. Over 300 requests were hung on the trees in the local stores and banks and by now most of the toys have been returned (check out the picture of the presents at The ROC warehouse.) We have received many donations of extra toys as well and some financial donations for this project so I think we’ll be ok with Angel Tree. The remainder of this week will be the tedious job of organizing the gifts by name and then transporting them all to the Rifle library on Friday for distribution on Saturday morning.

The Totes of Hope project remains strong. We packed food for 325 children this week and expect to pack extra next couple of weeks for them to take home for the Christmas Holiday break. It’s true that some children don’t get a meal during the 3-day weekends until they get back to the breakfast/lunch program at the school. Kim Regan and Tami Long, my leaders, as well as a good crew of volunteers are faithful helpers every week to make this project happen. We get our food for free but administration and transportation of the food costs us plenty.

I hope you’re praying for The ROC; I know you must be because miracle after miracle happens to keep us going. We’re thankful to the Rifle Community Foundation for their grant of $1,500 this month for emergency services. If you know of someone or a business who would like to make an end of the year tax deductable contribution please let them know about The ROC.

I get thanked every day for the work The ROC is able to do in this community. Yesterday the Rifle Mayor, Mr. Miller, stopped me on the street to thank me and to ask how it was going. I thanked him for the support of the Rifle Community Foundation. I thank God for the opportunity to be involved in this wonderful work! God is blessing and I don’t worry because He seems to enjoy surprising me around every corner.

Check out the new photos of Angel Tree and Totes of Hope on this web page.

On the last report we were praising God for opening for us a new facility where we can do the Totes of Hope and Angel Tree programs. Since then God has filled up the building with shelving and furniture! God is good! Our old friends at Rifle Truck and Trailer moved to their new facility at the same time we were acquiring ours. I asked John if he was going to have any extra shelving from the old building and it turns out he did. He gave us two industrial shelving units that measure 8’ long 3’ deep and can reach up to 12’ high. They are valued at $350 apiece. One of his men helped me disassemble them, transported them to our facility and my son-in-law, Mike Glynn, helped reassemble them. So we have wonderful shelving.

That week I received a call from The Rotary Club in Rifle asking if I would be willing to accept an invitation do be a last minute substitution and present a program for them at their next meeting in 4 days. I gladly accepted and put together a power point presentation which I gave to the group of about 20 at an early morning breakfast. One lady in attendance is the director of Garfield County Libraries. After the presentation she said, “Come see me. I’ve got some stuff you can use.” And did she ever! Glenwood Springs just completed a new library and were opening it that weekend. The old library was full of tables, chairs etc. that she said I could have if I wanted. Son-in-law Mike went over with me and between his truck and my Ford Focus station wagon we loaded: 7 folding tables, 10 padded chairs, office desk and chair, two cabinets, one large and one small book case, 3 step stools, two coat racks, 3 large door mats and a large trash can. It’s all nice stuff too. We are set! So God arranged for me to be a substitute-program where I would cross paths with the very lady with whom I needed to be in contact. God is Good!!

In September we received two $1,000 grants for Totes of Hope from Wal Mart and Western Colorado Community Foundation. This helped us purchase diabetic food as well as some packaged fruit we were short of for the totes. So with the money we saved by having all these things donated we were able to buy the two wheel dollies we needed as well as basic office supplies so we could function. Thank you, Jeanne, for all the hours you spend grant-writing!

We are serving up to 320 children per week with the food program. Kim Regan, our School Programs Leader, is doing a good job.

The Angel Tree Program is starting this month. This provides a toy for children under age 12 who otherwise would not receive a Christmas present. We have a wonderful team leader in Elaine Cloninger who is detail oriented and knows the community. The local Catholic Church is teaming up with us because they were dissatisfied with how their Jerome Tree program went last year. Agencies and schools will accept applications during the month of October. Elaine and I are soliciting businesses for their support this month as well. By mid November the Trees with the children’s names on the angles will be in Wal-mart, the local grocery store, Alpine Banks and other locations and the gifts returned to us by early December for distribution to the families on December 14; a lot of work in a short time. Elaine expects we may do as many as 400 gifts for children in Rifle, a community of about 9,200. We could use donations for this program because there are expenses beyond the buying gifts for angels that are taken and the gift not returned to us. When that happens we need to purchase a $25 gift for that child. Then at the end of the year, if we have any money left, we take advantage of after Christmas sales on gift bags and toys to build up stock for next year. I’m sure you have a similar program in your community. If you’d like to support ours, feel free!

On Sunday, October 6, 20 ROC volunteers worked to clean up weeds and accumulated junk from the yard of a senior citizen who is widowed and wheel-chair bound. The city had cited her for the condition of her yard but she was unable to do it herself nor was she able to pay anyone to clean it up for her. After surveying the situation I went to the City of Rifle and asked if they would be willing to provide a dump truck to haul the stuff off if I got the volunteers to do the work. God bless them; the city parked a large dump truck beside the house and our volunteers worked with family members to completely fill the truck plus two pick trucks. We started at 9 AM and were done before noon! What a great group of volunteers!

At The ROC Board last night we had a preliminary meeting with a group from The Executive Service Corps headquartered in Snowmass, CO. They came to evaluate us for the purpose of helping us create a strategic plan for the future of The ROC. These two gentlemen are retired executives: one from an oil company in TX and the other from an aluminum company. During their retirement they are using their experience to help non-profits organize to become more successful. They seemed genuinely pleased with their interview of the board and were impressed with how much The ROC has been able to accomplish in its first year. We should have a proposal by the end of the month of what they think they can do for us.

Fall has finally come to our area but the trees are late in turning their golden colors. The rain you heard about in Colorado did all its damage on the Front Range north of Denver. We got a lot of rain in September, and it’s raining again today, but no flooding in the western part of Colorado. We’ve had one ½” skiff of snow and a freeze. This just reminds us that the cold weather is coming and that means that heating bills will be going up. We expect an increase of requests for assistance as long as the economy in our area remains the way it is. Lots of people un-or-underemployed.

Thank you for your interest in Reach-Out Colorado. I appreciate your feed-back and I thank those who support us with your tax-deductable contributions.

You can start praising, just don’t stop praying! God has answered our prayers for a building in which to conduct the Totes of Hope Program! Murdock Electric (the company my son-in-law, Mike, works for) has agreed to let us use one end of their four-bay building that sits at the end, just beneath the runway of the Garfield County Airport in Rifle. (The planes fly right over us on take-off!!) We are so grateful to them and to Mike for his persistence in soliciting the use of this building. They are not going to charge us any rent! We’ll see how the utilities come in this winter though. Murdock uses it for storage of some of their things and there is not much in it so it mostly sits empty. You can check the building pictures out in the Photo section on the web-site. I’ll post more photos after we’re completely moved in and operational.

I spent today sweeping and cleaning our end of the building up. There are two bathrooms at our end of the building as well. There is still some question about delivery of the food to the building. One trucker I asked to look at it said that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to get a tractor with a 53’ trailer back there and that is what Food Bank of the Rockies has. I’m afraid he may be right. But I have found neighborhood business owners (very friendly and willing to help out) that have fork-lifts so if the palates of food needs to be dropped in the street in front of the building we will still be able to get it moved inside. Winter will pose a challenge, I’m sure.

What we still need: The church facility we were using, although small, had these things and now we’re going to have to set up our own house keeping.

Shelving: One business owner that has helped us before (Rifle Truck and Trailer) has moved their operation from north Rifle to just down the street from where our location is. They may have some extra shelving they won’t be using and I’ll know by the end of this week about that. We will need 10 heavy-duty shelf assemblies that are at least 4’w x 2’ d x 6’h with 5 shelves each. I have found where I can get them for about $80 apiece if we need to buy them.

Two-wheeled dolly: We need at least one more since we added another school to deliver the Totes to.

Tables: We need at least three 8’ folding tables for packing the food for Totes.

Desk and chair: Need somewhere to do our paperwork and to keep our cutting and writing

supplies.

File cabinet: 2 drawer would be sufficient

Roll of Carpet about 16’x20’. When Angel Tree uses the room in November/December they spread the toys out on the floor and have to crawl around to sort them. The floor is concrete so if we could roll some carpet down for that project it would be very nice.

If any of you feel inspired to contribute any of these, it would be much appreciated. Of course our Emergency Program of helping people with various problems that come up continues as well while this is going on. Thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement. God is opening every door we come to and the community is being blessed.

Kim Regan, our Totes of Hope leader, sent out a newsletter to our Totes volunteers asking them to be ready for this coming year. We will need them when we move out of the church facility and into the new building.

Have spent a lot of time this past month mediating for clients re. housing and utilities. This has allowed me to work with many other agencies in the county from Adult Protective Services to the Housing Authority. Time consuming but very good networking. These agencies are coming to realize that The ROC can be helpful in these situations, so that is all good.

The total number of people helped in July and August is 18. For the calendar year, 127.

Thank you to Rosie and Sharon from Tom’s Door who had a lunch meeting with me last month to discuss working together. They want to refer clients from my end of the valley to me to evaluate and then send the request on to them. This will make a more efficient process in getting help to clients down valley and will expedite those clients who contact me that I refer to Tom’s Door. Thank you for lunch as well!

St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Rifle Parish, is also partnering with The ROC by sending a monthly contribution for Emergency funds. They also refer people who come to them to The ROC.

Thank you to former Mayor Keith Lambert of Rifle for meeting with me in July. He is on the Aspen Foundation Board and we discussed the possibilities of the Foundation funding a team of professionals to meet with The ROC Board to work on strategic planning and growing our Board. I heard from Aspen Foundation yesterday and they gave me a name to contact to get this process going, so I’m excited about that.

The Totes of Hope summer program went well. Thank you to Kim Regan, our Totes leader, and to the volunteers who came out to pack the food for the summer school program. We did 60-70 students per week. The Re2 School District wants us to take on the Rifle Middle School this school years and we think we’re looking at 100-150 more students. That will bring our weekly student rate up to 400. This means we will need a larger area to receive, shelve and pack the food each week. Listen to how God is working things out.

In July the Ladies of The ROC (Marjorie, Sandy, Elaine and Jeanne) put together a dozen “ROC Boxes.” These were small packages containing luxury toiletries to give to the Advocate Safe House in our area. This is where women go to be safe from dangerous and abusive situations. They are cared for there but are virtually prisoners until their situations are resolved. Our ladies thought this would be a way to give a boost to these ladies living in these circumstances. I sent an article to our local paper with a picture of the ladies and their ROC Boxes and I added a PS that perhaps the paper would do an article for The ROC because we needed a larger space to do Totes of Hope. The editor got back with me and arranged an interview to do an article about our need. It so happened that that same week that the Glenwood Post Independent also contacted me (probably because they say the article in the other paper about the ROC Boxes) and wanted to do an article. So there were two interviews and two articles that came out in two different papers on the same day: August 8, 2013 (see Rifle Citizen Telegram and Glenwood Post Independent.)

As a result of that article The ROC has so far received two monetary contributions. I have been going throughout the community contacting building owners re. their properties that are sitting empty (bad economy) looking for a property on the ground floor of at least 1000 sq ft. Some are thinking about it. I need all of you to be praying about it. We hope to get it rent free otherwise we’ll need to be raising money for rent. We will also need utilities. We have been fortunate in the past to be able to use the SDA church food bank for our storage facility but that room is only 16’x16’ and is way too small for what we will need this year. But we didn’t need to pay rent or utilities so that was a big help to us for our first year.

We are grateful to God for His blessings and for opening doors for this ministry. Thank you to each of you for your interest in reading this blog, for praying for us and for supporting us when you can.

It’s been a busy month and so I’m two weeks late posting this report. We finished a successful first year with Totes of Hope feeding 250 children every week for the school year. We’ve had many good reports of how helpful this has been for families and teachers not to mention the kids who look forward to every Thursday when they get their packet of food. They’re eager to see what the snack will be! Kim Regan with her assistant Tami Long did a wonderful job keeping it going all year. A big thank you to all the many volunteers who came every week to pack the totes and help get them delivered!

The summer Totes program is beginning with the kids in summer school. Kim is planning to pack 60 each week. She made the first delivery last week. Four small palates of food came today that will supply us for the month. I thank Rifle Truck and Trailer for receiving the shipment and bringing it over to the food bank at the church; Roland and his crew from the city of Rifle for unloading it and getting it down the stairs; and Jeanne for helping to get it on the shelves.

In May we helped a total of 8 families totaling 21 people with rent, utilities, gasoline and food. The $647 granted by The ROC for utilities was matched by $600 that we solicited from other agencies for these clients. A referral to another agency brought $300 for rent for a family and some help with utilities. We supplied $90 for food plus bags of food from our food pantry and also bought $70 of gasoline for two families.

These folks whom we help are screened by me to determine that this support will not be a month to month option for them. They must demonstrate that they have extenuating circumstances and have a plan to make it next month. Sometimes it means moving to a cheaper apartment or beginning a job they have been able to find. The job market is very tight around here. I’m learning that very few students have found work for the summer because what jobs they would have filled are usually taken by heads of families who are trying to make ends meet.

The Rock is still in business because of God’s blessing and the help of our regular contributors. I invite you to join them if you have some spare change. Another idea is that summer is a great time for fund raisers. You might consider having a garage sale or such like thing and contributing to The ROC. All donations are tax deductable. I’d love to have you on the team.

As I write “ROC Repot #12” it smacks me in the head that, by the grace of God, we have been doing this for one year! Jeanne and I are grateful to God for His blessings and for the support all of you have given us whether it has been through encouragement, prayers, financial support or volunteering.

As a result of the small grant we received last month the ROC Board voted to budget $500 a month for emergency services. We are praying that God will give us fund raising people as well as blessing the other grant applications that are out there so that we will be able to continue and even increase the emergency services budget. In April we helped 3 families with utilities and two with gasoline. We were able to direct 4 people to find help from other services for rent, food and furniture as well. Of course Totes of Hope continues with the weekend food program for 250 elementary children per week. Our Totes volunteers are awesome!

We set up a booth at the Garfield County Child Safety Fair in Rifle which over 600 people attended. I was Master of Ceremonies making announcements and drawing tickets to give away the prizes that local merchants had donated and Jeanne manned the booth, visited with people and signed up twelve new volunteers. This gave The ROC good exposure. The ROC booth gave out spring bulbs for people to plant (that had been donated by City Market in Rifle), mini frisbees with The ROC information on them as well as toy frogs and assorted things for the kids. It was a good day.

I met with the Garfield County Human Services Committee (HSC) this month and have networked with a number of organizations because of this contact. Jeanne and I also attended a workshop on Sustainable Nonprofits and with another committee at United Way which were very helpful and also provided us with some networking.

I also met with a representative from The Aspen Foundation, to whom we have applied for a grant. These processes take time but I believe they are interested in helping us build a stronger ROC by providing management, budget, and board counseling which I would welcome. The fact that we have made it a year has given us experience enough to realize that we want to be a stronger organization.

It was a year ago in April that The River Center Board in New Castle, after which we have modeled The ROC, voted to mentor us and give us support and show us how to get started. I began weekly meetings with their director, Lee Price, and met with their monthly board meetings for more than 6 months. So at the April River Center Board, the ROC Board “flash-mobbed” their meeting with a cake, balloons and a thank you card. They were appreciative and still support The ROC. We make referrals back and forth to each other and share together helping families sometimes as well. We thank them for their guidance and inspiration and for their service in New Castle and Silt.

Like us out on Face Book under Reach-Out Colorado and refer us to your circle of friends, if you please. Our web page is www.reach-out-colorado.org and I up date it every month with info and pictures. We continue to covet your prayers, encouragement and support as we endeavor to provide assistance to people in need.